4/19 Kind of nice to see the level of detail in the second amendment
discussion. Thanks to all who contributed. Makes me feel
hopeful for democracy and the better angels of our nature.
\_ In US the there can never be a gun control because that is
the way the society has developed. You and me and many
others understands the invalidity of the second amendment
but to make it through the head of these lunatics will take
ages or may be many such tragedies. What irks me most where
is the PROPER BACK GROUND CHECK. If they had a process of
checking the back ground thoroughly then any person with
little sense would have known that this guy does not deserve
to have even a spoon in his hand, forget a gun. There is no
shortage of resources to dig out every bit of information of
a gun holder and YES if a person wants to have a gun they
cannot argue for the right to privacy. Nobody should be able
to go to a store and buy a gun, the people who are
interested to possess a gun should enroll themselves and a
thorough check should be done and even then I am sure
incidents will happen but may reduce a lot. The general
apathy to everything which is not your own among the people
of this country has to change. This guy was crying out loud
that he needed help and yet not enough was done to really
help him. His parents were ignorant so they could not fathom
the extend of his cruel mind but what about the rest of the
society? This general lack of compassion among the people
of this country often makes us (I mean my family) wonder
whether we should continue to live in this country or go
back to our own land. This rush, always to do something or
get something done all the time where nobody has time to
look around and reach out for others is really missing. You
know we have a guy from certain country in our research
lab. Believe me nobody talks to him, nobody asks him for
lunch out, he comes and goes at his own time mostly avoiding
the vibrant time in the lab. Last Christmas I remember him
telling me that he is feeling very lonely because the only
thing he would be doing during the holidays is work. I felt
bad for him then but I did not really call him to my place
even though I had several get togethers. This tendency of us
to be always with the Best and seen around with the Best has
made us forget that we should not leave anybody behind. I
am sorry for this long note but someway I was unburdening my self.
\_ In US the there can never be a abolition because that is the
way society has developed...
But, really, OP, you were really asking for it by congratulating
the motd crowd on civility and sense.
\_ It is kind of tough to respond to you, especially with
this kind of a format. But as I could understand from
your response, you are of the opinion that we are in
need of sophisticated weapons to defend
ourselves. When you carry that argument too far, ther
only way we can be safe is if we barricade our homes,
lay mines outside, arm ourselves with rocket launchers
and machine guns, because we can be invaded anytime.
And I agree, that notion would not be too absurd, but
that is exactly why we humans organized as a society
and founded cities and eventually countries, so that
they could get on with life and hand off their
security to a professional military and police force
funded by part of what they earn (as tax). If you feel
that the government you elected cannot fulfil the duty
assigned to them of protecting your life and property,
it is then probably time for you to think about
changing the government.
If you do not empower that regulating force to control
the possession of items which are beyond the reason of
self-defence, then I guess it is kind of tough to
entrust anyone with any job. I am not going to take
the argument much further, seeing that you have a view
that is completely orthogonal to mine and one that is
kind of tough for me to comprehend.
I see securing people as a job that we let someone
else do. I pay people to write software for me, I pay
people to protect me. Yes, I could do it all myself,
but then I would not be able to do things that I am
good at. I say this in the context of your argument
that students should and would be well trained in the
responsible use of these weapons. Contrary to what you
might believe, military school might not be the best
place to be.
I refuse to fire a gun, and in your world, I would not
survive too many days, maybe mothers are a breed that
is undesirable in that scheme of things.

4/19 Where is the wall_log?
\_ As of yesterday, I think everything is back where it used to be:
the current week's logs are in /var/log/wall.log*, and older ones
get archived in /csua/lib/wall. --mconst
\_ Thanks mconst!

4/20 Double your gas milage by adding pure acetone to your gas?
http://urltea.com/ehy (techeblog.com)
\_ I can't watch the video on my linux box at work. What does it show?
That acetone doesn't increase your gas milage, but does melt your
paint and seals?
\_ Well the video claims that if you add acetone to your gas you
can double your gas milage
\_ Ah. I've seen this debunked a few places, and acetone will
melt rubber, so I'd be careful with it. Try it out and tell
me how it goes.
\_ Mythbusters busted this one.
\_ Yes and did you know if you inject cocaine in a horse it'll ALWAYS
win the race? Of course you can only do this once per its lifetime.

4/20 Penn & Teller on 2nd Amendment
http://www.washingtonceasefire.com/content/view/47/45
\_ Glenn Beck will be talking about gun control tonight on HNN, and
Penn will be on.
\_ Its a cute argument and fairly well presented, but every gun
control advocate would argue that taking guns away from everyone
will decrease gun posession percentage all around. They say that
criminals will get guns regardless, while that may be true, making
supply illegal would severely limit the availibility. One could see
parallels between this and drug laws. Making supply (of any sort)
illegal makes prosecution and enforcement much easier. Not that
I support all drug policy, just using its effects as an example.
-mrauser
\_ I'm sorry but the right to bear arms was not penned to
wage war against furry creatures, it was to defend the
person against militia men and any standing army (foreign
and domestic)
\_ And you feel that having a handgun will protect you against
a tank, cruise missles, and f14 planes? You have no ability
to protect yourself against a military. If thats really
what you want you should be lobbying for the ability for
citizens to purchase tanks (should they have the money). A
citizen militia is never going to face a modern army.-mrauser
\_ no. but those soldiers wont be coming back home to loved
ones. it's not like the army would be fighting a war
in a foriegn country.. they have to come back and live
with the people they killed..
... so the best resistance is destroy the homes and
business of those in the military trying to destroy our
freedom. If they use F15s , tanks they run the risk
of killing their own family members..
\_ it's much more likely that you'd have more localized
conflict (more like the Civil War) where this would
not be much of an issue for the fed military. A bunch
of yahoos with civilian guns is pretty much going to
get "pwned", even by just normal infantry. A terrorist
campaign is also not going to have much effect; by
nature it would be limited in scope and lose the
propaganda war. Either the gov't wins or you get some
form of anarchy. In any case it's unclear that handguns
are needed for this.
\_ the gov't loses and the US Constitution will be
restored (i guess libs call that anarchy)
There is no propaganda war to win.. it would be
a fight for freedom...
\_ Hahahahahahaha. Everyone loved that guy who
bombed the OK building right?
\_ Tell the Iraqis this.
\_ Why?
\_ how many Millions died in the civil war?
Besides , this time the south will be on the side
of the Pro gunners because they love their guns
\_ What?
\_ THat's what the redcoats thought. Of course, no one in a
tank would ever sympathize with a revolutionary.
\_ And there again is a fine argument for not bothering to
let the citizenry own guns.
\_ perhaps u prefer to stand next to a ditch and
get gunned down? Wait a minute!! you want to be
the one that guns down pro gunners and conservatives!
that's what this is all really about...
only way liberals can win is to take away all the
guns.. get control of the army and then kill off
all the conservatives... that's your plan.. we know..
\_ the 2nd amendment describes the state govt fighting against
the federal government. i concede the federal government
probably has control of launch codes and can nuke a state,
but i feel stupid for participating in this discussion.
\_ I think everyone should be allowed to have a gun as long
as they regularily fire it against representatives of
the goverment.

4/20 Is there some reason why the apache logs are not world readable?
\_ Because what other people are surfing is no one's business?
\_ They used to be world readable. Among other things, this was
useful because it allowed users to view the error log so they
could debug cgi scripts. -dans
\_ The undergrads surely made a conscious and well thought out
decision to do things this way. Why don't you make a
constructive suggestion instead of whining that things are
done differently than they were in your day.

4/20 Bad numbers on both sides of the gun debate. -emarkp
http://csua.org/u/iio
\_ Hey, great, we have a lower gun death rate than El Salvador and
Albania! Good thing we have all those guns for self-defense! -tom
\_ I think a more informative way to look at gun deaths in the US
is to treat suburbs, for instance, differently from gang-infested
inner cities. Generally if you leave the inner cities, gun rates
in the US are comparable to Europe. It is true that gangs and
inner cities are a big problem in the states, but I don't think
the cultural issues involve are mainly (or at all) caused by guns.
\_ If only we could live in a soft-gloved police state like the UK
all would be well!
\_ Woo Hoo! USA! USA! USA! New national slogan: "It's better
than civil war" -tom

4/20 Why cars suck, reason #48:
http://sfgate.com/columnists/lloyd
\_ Hello libUral!
\_ Hello moron(z - haven't read the article, OP may be a moron too).
\_ Yeah, I really liked living in "mixed-use" areas in Korea. I
never really understood why Americans wanted to like in giant
residential areas. Boring. -jrleek
\_ Americans like a lot of space so they can load up their
big SUVs with tons of supplies they buy from Costco.
They need a lot of space to park their big SUVs. And
finally they need a lot of space so they can listen to
hip-hop without their neighbors complaining. Why live in
the dirty, crammed noisy city when you can have exquisite
country living?
\_ The city is also fucking expensive, unless it's a shitty
slummy area full of violent people.
\_ People with long journeys to and from work are systematically worse
off and report significantly lower subjective well-being,. Stutzer
told me. According to the economic concept of equilibrium, people
will move or change jobs to make up for imbalances in compensation.
Commute time should be offset by higher pay or lower living costs,
or a better standard of living. It is this last category that people
apparently have trouble measuring. They tend to overvalue the
material fruits of their commute.money, house, prestige.and to
undervalue what they.re giving up: sleep, exercise, fun.
http://www.csua.org/u/ij3 (New Yorker)

4/20 http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-3722.html
Affluent *suburban* kids report 3X depression rates. I am not at
all surprised. Suburbia->isolation->depression. I grew up in the
cities and when I moved to the suburbs everyone in the family
became isolated, depressed, gay and suicidal. I HATE SUBURBS.
-intellectual urbanite

4/21 Latest sign that reality is becoming an Onion headline:
"When you're president of the United States and you have this many
folks that you are employing, it's a pretty small number that he's had
to express full confidence in."
--White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino
\- Bhutan to hold fake election:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6578421.stm

4/21 from all these postings on gun control.
I agree that only 1 group of psychos who can't control
themselves should not be allowed to own guns .. that group is..
Critical Mass ... they are psychos..
I think that's why some bicyclist on here are for gun control
because they are psychos in themselves and can't control
themselves, yet at the same time are elitist ... - duck
\_ Lot of vested interest in keeping the gun lobby .both pro
and cons say i have a middle instead of licensing/regulating
why t we license bullets on a very strict basis, guns without
bullets are a piece of metal, if we can regulate bullets, say
one bullet only per gun only, wont that be a good control, gun
makers , NRA will be happy, while killing will come down as
bullets will be in short ..just a thought
\_ ARMS = GUN + AMMO (BULLETS)
\_ I am yet to hear a pro-gun argument that makes sense
except its fun (for deer hunters & man-child navy
seal worshippers) and its allowed by the
constitution. Anybody who thinks that an army
that breaches US defenses can be held back by the
militia must be watching too much of Military Raj and
Independence Day sort of movies.In the book
Freakonomics, the author argues that swimming pools
are more fatal than guns, drowning accidents being
more common statistically. Fair enough, but the key
difference I think is that it is difficult to drown
39 other people along with yourself.I am sure
mountaineering would be even more fatal but that is
hardly the issue, for the same reason of zero impact
on those who do not take the plunge. On the issue of
the sting of others having it better, unfortunately
it is part of the mental makeup of most people. We do
know of certain doctrines whose mass appeal kind of
rests on this instinct to pull down others rather
than uplift oneself. Mobs are built out of negative
energies and not positive intent. No one can be as
blind and devastating as a self righteous man as he
sees no wrong in his actions, has a unipolar
worldview and has taken uncertainty out of his life.
At least in the US this s views are treated as an
absurdity. In certain other countries, if this guy
reigns himself back a little bit, he can go
mainstream with his views if not his actions.
(Who????????????) that breaches US defenses can be
held back by the militia must be watching too much of
Military Raj and Independence Day sort of movies.In
the book Freakonomics, the author argues that
swimming pools are more fatal than guns ,drowning
accidents being more common statistically. Fair
enough, but the key difference I think is that it is
difficult to drown 39 other people along with
yourself.I am sure mountaineering would be even more
fatal but that is hardly the issue, for the same
reason of zero impact on those who do not take the
plunge. On the issue of the sting of others having it
better, unfortunately it is part of the mental makeup
of most people. We do know of certain doctrines whose
mass appeal kind of rests on this instinct to pull
down others rather than uplift oneself. Mobs are
built out of negative energies and not positive
intent. No one can be as blind and devastating as a
self righteous man as he sees no wrong in his
actions, has a unipolar worldview and has taken
uncertainty out of his life.
At least in the US this s views are treated as an absurdity. In
certain other countries, if this guy reigns himself back a little bit,
he can go mainstream with his views if not his actions.man
\_ No wonder people think that Stanford is better
\_ gungrabbers should look in the mirror
\_ "You talkin' to ME?"
\_ Militias are very powerful. Look at Iraq and Vietnam.
One not only has to conquer a country, but occupy it.
However, the primary entity you are protecting
yourself from is the US government. It is a powerful
deterrent to, say, a military coup when a substantial
portion of law abiding citizens own a weapon. I am
in favor of controls on handguns, but not rifles.
It is much harder to conceal a rifle.
\- are you referring to the NVA as a "militia"?
what does that make say al queda? a club?
\_ The Viet Cong. Al Qaeda is a terrorist
organization, but the Iraqi insurgency is
very much made up of former military organized
militia-style. Same with Afghanistan for that
matter.
\_ Militias are most powerful in the face of an absence
of a militarily strong, unified, and at least apparently
legitimate central government. When the central gov.
has a strong military and local/national support,
militias are usually either dispersed or marginalized to
the point of non-effectiveness. (Cf. Ruby Ridge, Waco.)
In Iraq, a lot of the same groups that get lumped in
with the insurgency spend a lot of time maintaining
order within their own local areas or repelling attacks
from other militias; there are a lot of folks more
divided by tribal affiliations than religious factions.
Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency